No Closer to Any Kind of Truth
by deeleigh
Summary: Spoliers for CitC. BB.


_I descended a dusty gravel ridge  
Beneath the Bixby Canyon Bridge  
Until I eventually arrived  
At the place where your soul had died_

Barefoot in the shallow creek  
I grab some stones from underneath  
And waited for you to speak to me

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Every other day she went out to the cemetery to just sit. Sometimes, she sat right in front of the headstone, other times she stood. Somedays, she didn't come alone. The people who accompanied her on those days sometimes came without her, but no one visited the grave site more frequently than her.

You obviously meant a lot to her, although she never left anything at the site. At the beginning, when she first started to visit you, she brought flowers. She always brought daisies. Then one day, she just stopped bringing them. No more flowers for you -- at least from her anyway.

Even though death in an inevitable part of life, she couldn't grasp that someone so heroic could have this life taken from him in such a boring, common manner.

At first when she would visit, she would stand there, and her words were relatively the same: _'I feel stupid, Booth,'_ but she would keep on talking, mostly just small talk.

Then one day, she simply broke. She had started to tell you that she felt ridiculous, but then instead of talking about your friends or whatever she told you about, she asked you a simple question, her voice so fragile and quiet that it seemed that without an answer, she would never leave.

_'Can you even hear me?' she asked. Then she sat down on the grass above where your body was buried, and ran her fingers over the stone. 'I hope you can.'_

After a while, the other's visits became less and less frequent. Her's, however, never stopped. She would arrive in the early morning, and stay until the mid afternoon. That was how it went.

And after every visit, she left seeming disappointed. As if she wanted you to say something back to her. You couldn't... you were dead. But you heard every word that left her mouth.

She kept her promises. She came out to talk to you, just like she said she would. She kept another promise to you as well --though at first you that she hadn't.

Slowly, her stomach grew. She spoke about all that was happening with the pregnancy. She thought you should know. She even made a joke about the morning sickness being all your fault. She talked about how Angela had made her promise not to name the baby anything similar to Seeley, knowing you would hate it.

Once she knew that the 'fetus', as she so lovingly called it, was a girl, she came to ask you what you would want it to be named. She was thinking Leslie. She thought it would be nice to make the fetus' middle name Christine -- after her mother.

'Do you think it sounds nice? Leslie Christine Booth?' She had cried when she told you that. 'Yeah,' she had said, 'she gets your last name.'

The baby had been born on Zach's birthday. She told you about when she took the baby to see Zach, when she'd told him that the baby's birthday was the same as his. She told you how Zach had cried, only for a moment, and told her he felt his emotions were extremly irrational.

Not too long after that, Zach had been released. He'd visited you, but said nothing. He simply stood there.

She told you stories about your daughter. About how she had taken a sabbatical, and how Zach was head Forensic Anthropologist at the Jeffersonian for now.

Around the time your daughter was five, they almost always came to your grave together. The little girl didn't really understand, but she enjoyed being outside.

There was a small pond about fifty yards from your grave stone, and Leslie liked to watch the ducks. She taught your daughter about the animals that swam there, about what they liked to eat and where they went in the winter. The next time they visited, they brought stale bread with them, and your daughter fed the ducks, with a smile that looked all too much like your own on her face.

She let the child run around while she sat with you, not saying much. Just looking.

She would turn and look over her shoulder to watch the young girl. She would then tell you that she acted just like you -- that you had the same laugh, the same eyes, the same taste in food. Your daughter hated broccoli and loved pie. Apple was her favourite.

At the end of the visits, she always looked the same, though. As if she wasn't getting everything out of the meeting that she wanted. Disappointment.

But one visit, the time with the stale bread, she told you something that broke your heart more than not being able to be with her.

_'Everytime I look on her eyes, just for a minute, I think that maybe it's you. It makes loving you that much harder. Knowing for a second that maybe I could tell you that I love you, and then thinking for a moment, that you might say it back.'_

And even though you never said anything back to her -- you couldn't, you're dead -- She would always nod, and respond as if you actually had spoken to her.

_'I know.'_

OoOoOoOoOoO

_I descended a dusty gravel ridge  
Beneath the Bixby Canyon Bridge  
Until I eventually arrived  
At the place where your soul had died_

Barefoot in the shallow creek  
I grab some stones from underneath  
And waited for you to speak to me

_In the silence it became so very clear  
That you had long ago disappeared  
And I cursed myself for being surprised  
That this didn't play like it did in my mind_

_-_Bixby Canyon Bridge, Death Cab for Cutie


End file.
